


everything is a bummer (and summer will not bring me slumber)

by Ella Symphony (LaurenX)



Category: Given (Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Beaches, Complicated Relationships, Falling In Love, Feelings, Fluff and Angst, Future Character Death, God only knows at this point, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, I think I'm funny, I'm Bad At Tagging, Introspection, M/M, Melancholy, Metaphors, Rare Pairings, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Self-Indulgent, Walks On The Beach, as for Uenoyama..., not that Hiiragi acknowledges it, so many metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:56:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28927686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaurenX/pseuds/Ella%20Symphony
Summary: Hiiragi assesses him critically, eyes narrowed and the tendons of his feet tight and stiff, and starts out ridiculous, just as a means to test Uenoyama's will—"I wanna go to the beach at midnight and swim."Uenoyama stares at him, thoroughly unimpressed, and then says, "You're such a fucking pain. Let's go, then."And that, as some say, is that. Until practice ends and Hiiragi begins to leave, that is.If he ever meets someone more confusing than the guitarist standing in front of him, Hiiragi will count it as a miracle, or maybe a curse.(Or, the one where you can see the date of everyone's death except your own and, suddenly, everyone starts acting really, really nice to you.)
Relationships: Kashima Hiiragi & Satou Mafuyu, Kashima Hiiragi & Uenoyama Ritsuka, Kashima Hiiragi & Yagi Shizusumi, Kashima Hiiragi/Uenoyama Ritsuka, Past Satou Mafuyu/Uenoyama Ritsuka
Comments: 11
Kudos: 20





	everything is a bummer (and summer will not bring me slumber)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iwaxoi_shzrg](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwaxoi_shzrg/gifts).



> For Angie, who encouraged me to publish this, and my lovely girlfriend, who encouraged me to write it.
> 
> This was based off a prompt I saw going around on Tumblr. "In a world where you can see the exact date when everyone is going to die except for yourself, one day, people start acting nice to you. Like, really nice."
> 
> Enjoy!

Cobalt blue stares at him square in the face, stubborn and wholly unfazed, and Hiiragi wonders, vaguely, why it is him who does not flake.

“What.” Hiiragi responds, blankly enough to suck all the inflection out of the word.

Uenoyama sighs.

“What do you wanna do today?” he declares flatly once again, although with airs of grandiosity, and Hiiragi stares. Maybe glares is a better word, but he can hardly be blamed, no?

Uenoyama stares back.

Silence.

A sigh.

Hiiragi assesses him critically, eyes narrowed and the tendons of his feet tight and stiff, and starts out ridiculous, just as a means to test Uenoyama's will—"I wanna go to the beach at midnight and swim."

Uenoyama stares at him, thoroughly unimpressed, and then says, "You're such a fucking pain. Let's go, then."

And that, as some say, is that. Until practice ends and Hiiragi begins to leave, that is.

If he ever meets someone more confusing than the guitarist standing in front of him, Hiiragi will count it as a miracle, or maybe a curse.

It all began quite simply, innocuously, in the way most things in Hiiragi’s life have. How it’ll end is a matter aside, if the way everything has ended up until now is anything to go by, but it began with eyes that widened on a spot somewhere above his head, horror making molten bronze dull with rust, terror sharpening flints into a dagger. It had been odd, seeing Mafuyu’s face grow gaunt and Shizu’s features harden into solid stone, bones sharp and faces ashen, drawn tight over the magnitude of their sorrow. It had seemed all the more odd still for it to happen at all, to see such grief where usually there is the most vexed of fondness, the coldest of affections, the quiet wisps of melancholy than never quite leave, but that are softened by the fire of Hiiragi’s numerous grins.

Hiiragi has no delusions about his ability to melt the great peaks of ice in Mafuyu’s chest, the ones in Shizu’s spine, down to a puddle of pain, briny and clear, like sweat, or maybe tears. He cannot stitch their wounds and heal their scars any more than they can patch up his own, but he can file away at the ice, patient in the way he so rarely is, until the jagged ends will no longer catch on their skin, harming them more than anyone else. He can clean the messy wounds, and cover them in soft bandages, and make them smile, try and make them laugh. That much, he can do. He can try.

But for all his attempts, and his slow, pathetic progress—he ought to be better at this, having played along with such charades, bringing forth amusement if nothing else, but alas—there is much he cannot change, much he cannot understand. It is despairing, and a little sad, perhaps—no, not sad; excruciating, but he does not have the strength to utter such words, to string them along like that—but it is a burden he wants to carry, a responsibility he’s delighted to have. It is a good role to play.

He does not quite understand why the color has drained out of their faces, all the lines of them wicked and whetted enough that Hiiragi is all but certain that, were he to touch, to so much as brush his fingers over Shizu’s clenched jaw, Mafuyu’s cheekbone, they’d come away wet with blood and raw. He cannot quite comprehend why it is that the image of him, smiling at the train station and smiling, incites such horror. Why they have frozen, standing what feels like oceans away, what is only a few feet, staring, staring, staring. People pay them no mind, skirting around them with varying levels of annoyance, with increasing indifference, but some hold their tongue and their anger long enough to follow their eyes to the source of their appalement and, upon finding him, melt with sympathy and the kind of sadness you regale to others, but not yourself. They look away, and they carefully step around them, looking at Hiiragi like they want to apologize for his loss.

It’s preposterous, and weird, and fucking _terrifying_ , and Hiiragi really wants to disappear.

He calls their names, soft and with an edge of panic, of hysteria, and they blink, sluggish and slow, Mafuyu’s eyes wet and distant, like he is seeing through Hiiragi. Shizu is cold as ice, an immovable force, and it is only the way he stares at Hiiragi, resigned and lost and beyond tormented, that gives away his struggle. Mafuyu takes half a step back, shaking his head, mumbling words Hiiragi cannot make out from a distance he refuses to bridge, and there, in the sharp jut of his chin and the teeth pinning down the quivering of his lip, Hiiragi sees it. _Oh,_ he thinks, _he’s gonna leave._

How funny, that it’s always him, that it’s always like this. Confusing and hurtful and scary, without a word or a single second for Hiiragi to plead. The moment of stark clarity, cold and sudden, is new; usually the panic is a typhoon, and Hiiragi has seen brambles put up a greater fight than him. But right now, it tickles the edges of his consciousness almost tenderly, and Hiiragi blinks through it like honey, like film, strangely tired and strangely loose, calm. This might be alright, after all, or maybe not, but right now, he doesn’t know a thing except the absence of his lungs.

And then Shizu wraps a hand around Mafuyu’s arm, knuckles white from the tightness of his grip even from where Hiiragi stands, and without ever tearing his eyes away from Mafuyu, he speaks. Hiiragi cannot hear a thing, or make out the shape of Shizu’s lips, but whatever it is, Mafuyu slumps in his grip, a puppet with cut strings, and nods, nods like he’s wearing a crown of thorns. He is not smiling. He looks lost, looks scared. Looks like a broken doll, lovely and so sad.

Hiiragi thinks it suits him far too well, and forces his lips up into a smile that feels nothing short of grotesque, as Shizu and Mafuyu find their way toward him like soldiers at a funeral, the blues and the march and the age-old wounds. Is the station a graveyard, then, if they are leading a procession?

Is he the one being buried, if it is a casket they carry?

Hiiragi doesn’t know, doesn’t know a single goddamn thing, and all he can do is laugh and tease. _Why the long face?_ he asks, poking them in the ribs, knocking their shoulders together as they walk, pretending he does not see them exchange a loaded, agonized glance.

He crosses his arms behind his head, school bag hanging from his wrist, and whistles all too cheerily, pretending to stare straight ahead, pretending everything is okay. He has memorized numbers in a way he could never memorized math, and he has them on their skin since he cannot carve them into his bones, his marrow, his genetic code. They’re tucked under each of his malleoli, small and clean in the way his first few stick-and-pokes never were. He knows the numbers, knows them like he knows their names, and there are numbers behind his ear, too, except those are not a prophecy, but an epitaph, although a ridiculous, shitty one.

It is a brand, so doesn’t ever forget, so remembrance is always a stray hair away.

They are dates, numerations; future, unwanted appointments and assignations; a rendezvous nobody wanted to attend. After all, who would want to greet their own death?

They are nice, after that. Kind. Terribly kind.

Hiiragi can’t stand it.

If he sees Mafuyu’s annoyance melt into exhaustion, resignation in every line of his achingly young face, remarks turning to sand in his mouth, Hiiragi will scream. If he watches Shizu choke down scathing words and dismissal, forcing his features into something warmer and more inviting, offering the comfort of his affection at every single turn, Hiiragi might just throw all caution to the wind, might just say “fuck you” to every fate and deity, might just take care of it himself.

If he has to see the sympathy of strangers, the kindness of people he doesn’t know, the pity of people when he crosses the road—

He doesn’t want this.

He wonders how anyone could stand it.

He doesn’t have an answer.

Hiiragi is halfway out the door, shooting off a text to Shizu in response to his explanation for leaving early—”Sorry, I’m over at Mafuyu’s place,” said his message, like Shizu hadn’t spent more than half his time there since that day at the train station—when Uenoyama catches Hiiragi's sleeve and looks at him with profound indignation.

"Where the hell are you going?" he enunciates with utmost civility.

Hiiragi blinks. "Home...? Or what, do you wanna sleep with me, too?"

Uenoyama rolls his eyes. "Yeah, no thanks. I'm taking you to the beach, remember?"

Hiiragi stares, aghast. "You _are_?"

"You asked me to!" Uenoyama sounds somewhere between scandalized and furious, and Hiiragi laughs because this is fucking ridiculous.

Uenoyama flushes all the way down to his neck, gritting his teeth and narrowing his eyes murderously before a deft hand shoots out and grabs Hiiragi by the back of the collar, beginning to half pull, half drag him to an unknown destination. The amusement fades quickly and, in no time at all, he's kicking and screaming.

"Oi, Uenoyama! The fuck? Hey—lemme go already, you bastard!" He growls and scratches, but Uenoyama simply raises an unimpressed brow in return.

"What?" he says, smug. "You asked me to take you swimming to the beach at midnight, didn't ya?"

"I didn't think you'd actually do it!"

"Well, then you shouldn't have asked!"

"What kind of logic is that?"

The bickering continued onwards long after they'd boarded a train, with Uenoyama assuring the mildly distressed patrons that he had not, in fact, kidnapped Hiiragi, and that he was taking him for a surprise at the beach. They stare at him for a moment, then at Uenoyama, and Hiiragi can see them soften with pity and a compassion that makes him want to retch, that makes all his charisma and friendliness simmer into aggression and rage, lips pulling back in a snarl and hands curling into talons at his hands before Uenoyama wraps his arms around him from behind and pulls him away with insulting simplicity.

Soon, they sit in a lonely, empty train, flush together even though they've got the whole thing to themselves. Hiiragi is fuming and pouting while Uenoyama listens to music, only one headphone in. He'd offered Hiiragi the other but he'd simply turned away with a huff.

Twenty minutes pass before Hiiragi uncrosses his arms, slowly lowers them. The silence is deafening, even with all the noise the train makes. Uenoyama's breathing is gentle, peaceful. Nice and slow, an easy rise and fall. Like the tides in Hiiragi's mind, rising and falling at 7:00 AM, the sky pale gray and the sand like ash, the sea dark and inclement even though the waves were so smooth, so soft. So sweetly deceitful in their murderous embrace. He remembers a smile just as sweet, just as dear, just as lethal; remembers crinkled eyes and golden melancholy, a distance greater than time itself.

He takes the dangling earbud and plucks it in, closing his eyes and shuffling even closer. He's getting colder the closer they get to their destination, and Uenoyama is warm, almost overwhelmingly so. He's like a furnace through his clothes, and Hiiragi has never felt his anemia more.

Uenoyama only scoffs a "What's it to you, really?"—a small and tired sound, really, half fond in the same way one corner of his mouth curls up, and Hiiragi falls into the trap of it easy enough, letting his hair be ruffled with only a half-hearted snap of his teeth toward rough, wandering fingers. They never leave, not quite, brushing his scalp every now and again; the back of his ear, the soft black hairs at the end of his hairline, touching his throat, a gentle middle finger tracing the beginnings of his spine, rough and methodical and nearly shy. He lets him touch, lets him map terrain he doesn't even know himself, lets him have his fun because he's already been dragged into the unknown, might as well jump into the terrifying, too, right?

They arrive, and Uenoyama puts away the headphones, lets the music play raw from his phone and stuffs it in his pocket. He grabs Hiiragi by the wrist even though the blond puffs and huffs, and takes him through empty wide halls and rooms he doesn't know, through streets, through sidewalks and squares. And there it is, in the distance—the rumbling, the push and pull, the gentle lullaby of the ocean, sang by the sirens, so you'd forget the cold biting at your ankles would soon reside in your lungs and your throat. _Is this how it goes? How it ends?_ Is this why Mafuyu holds his tongue, why Shizu ruffles his hair, why Yayoi won't look at him the same?

Is this why a hand mindlessly slips down his sweaty wrist and into his clammy hand, squeezing on instinct and dragging him down a flight of wooden stairs, past rocks the size of his head and seaweed the color of Kaji Akihiko's eyes?

Hiiragi has one foot on the wood, sturdy and reliable and true, and one foot in the deceptive security of the trembling sand when Uenoyama takes a deep breath that sounds like a chuckle and a hiss all at once, and takes off in a flat, mad dash towards the waves. _The sand_ _,_ Hiiragi thinks belatedly, as ink blends into sand turned silver by the moon, the stars but dashes of light in a painting of all blacks, of torments.

"Uenoyama, the hell?" Hiiragi yells, stumbling over his own feet in an effort to keep up, bass heavy and heart heavier. It's beating, faster than in the train, and it's heavy with trepidation, with fear. The jolting of his wrist hurts all the way up to his shoulder, and it feels like tiny kisses of fire running through the insides of his veins, but it isn't as terrible a feeling as the one of the salt in the breeze, cool and shocking on his face, asking for things he cannot give.

Uenoyama doesn't stop, merely laughs. His fingers slide over Hiiragi's, but he doesn't let go; tightens his grip and grins at him over his shoulder, knocking his little grim world off-kilter. It isn't a dazzling grin by any means; it's small and uncertain, because it does not know how to exist much, but it crinkles his brows and eyes just the same, blue peeking through thick, long lashes like a thorn of desperation in a bush of hope. He's ink himself, this guy, a blotch of ink in the canvas they were all trying to rebuild, but no amount of Wite-Out could cover this stain. It was far too resilient for that. Pain, it had grown accustomed to, and loneliness even more so. Leaving, it seemed, was the one thing it could not accept. Hair like ink moved through the air, blending in with the pitch black of the night, dyed purple by the stars; clouds were like cotton candy, about to dissolve into a sugary mist; he was walking on silver powder, every step quick and terrified; the sea is blue, and it is dark, and it does not forgive, and Hiiragi _wants._

The last of their footsteps dig into the sand, throwing silver everywhere, with the sudden momentum of their stop. They stand a few feet away from the sea, the receding waves brushing the wet sand a foot away from them, white foam on navy dye. It was colder here, ringing in his ears louder, the smell of salt stronger, so that he felt it in his tongue and dragged it over his teeth. The sand feels harder under his feet, packed and beaten by wet and dry alike. This was the tightrope on the erupting volcano, the leap of faith into the fiery pits of hell, the oath in the face of Justice herself. This was the final step.

Hiiragi was frozen, hands cold, but fingers squeezed his palm, all violent concern and rough edges, calluses catching on his lighter ones and forcing warmth into his body through his scars and wounds. Summer would come as many times as it pleased, no matter how much Hiiragi wanted it gone, and it was hot, and kind, and lonely.

Hiiragi squeezed back even though poison and the promise of solitude were all he could offer. _Is this it? Is this how it ends? Is this why? Is this with whom it ends?_

_Is this my last night on earth?_

It had a nice ring to it, cheesy or not, and besides, Uenoyama was the one constantly fretting over what the world had become. Hiiragi? Now, _he_ was just fine with borrowing someone else's words while he was already running on borrowed time.

Uenoyama knocked their shoulders together, _hard._ Hard enough to knock his heart back into place and the sea foam out of his lungs.

"What's the big idea?" Hiiragi complains, rubbing at his shoulder with his free hand.

Uenoyama ignores him with practiced ease, looks at him with eyes that reflect every wave and the moon's death instead. His smile, the bow of a constellation Hiiragi had never seen with his own two eyes, promised many things, and all of them terrified him with want.

"Wanna go for a swim?" he said, nails digging in, and it was the gentlest pain, the softest of kills.

Hiiragi was shaking in his grip, because it was cold and because he was deathly afraid even though he knew how to swim just fine. The waves were like tar even in their grace, in their breathtaking beauty; if Hiiragi were an artist, he wouldn't be afraid of the sea, because who with a brush and the most frightening thing of all, imagination, could ever fear something they regarded with such respect? But Hiiragi couldn't paint for shit, could hardly hold a brush well, and he was no poet, either, nor did he want to dazzle the world with words alone. Music was enough, was everything, because he'd never understand, and Mafuyu would never explain, and Shizu would never ask, and Yuki would never be there again. But on stage, he could understand, just a little. They could listen, for just a bit.

Hiiragi is free, for the shortest of moments.

Uenoyama is warm, and Hiiragi is scared, and summer is staring him in the face with the most terrifying shade of blue of all; dark as midnight, like fluorescent stage lights and Christmas lights, and with all the hellfire of understanding. No pity. No sympathy. No mercy.

 _I won't make any allowances,_ is what Hiiragi thinks it means.

He swallows thickly, salt lacing saliva and settling in his stomach like stardust. It is cold. Hiiragi squeezes back, smiles a smile that could hardly ever be called that, that is all tremulous lines of misery and a revolting acceptance harsh with obstinacy.

"Yeah, let's go for it," he says, smiling a tad wider, eyes catching golden in the moonlight, and in that moment, the sun was alive in the middle of the night.

They drop their instruments a few ways away, where they can see them and remain tethered to this plane, lest the ocean sweep them away with its gentle song of _you are home._ Blazers are dropped in a heap of black and green, a tie following, and soon shoes are haphazardly strewn besides the small pile of clothing, mismatched socks the cherry on top. Hiiragi rolls up his sleeves as Uenoyama follows suit with the hems of his pants, folding them up to the knee before pulling his sleeves up to his elbows. Hiiragi follows dutifully, and then he follows footsteps into the ocean, careful to step around them. He doesn't dip a toe in the indents left behind by this yokai he's found, doesn't dare let himself see who's foot is bigger, feel the heat he left behind on the cold sand. He doesn't look to see how they look side by side.

He only stops when they're standing in front of the great unknown, closer than they were before, cold foam brushing their toes and drawing hisses that turn into snickers. The wind is an acquired taste and Hiiragi can already tell it is one he himself is fond of, and the water is freezing, like bathing in ice. It feels like acid on his toes, dark and turbulent and treacherous. He wants to turn around and run away. His hands twitch. He could turn around and leave, for the billionth time. It's a different beach, a different sky, a different wind, a different scene, but it's the same old ocean, taking and taking and taking.

He wants to be taken but he doesn't know how to come back after.

Hiiragi's terrified, because here he's in the dark and he's alone, and he takes a step back, shaky and uncertain, before a hand locks like iron around his elbow. Beacons of neon blue light electrify his nerve ends like a drug, instantaneous and beyond lethal, and lips curved into the most serious of scowls, the softest of challenges, mouth words that get lost in the crashing of the waves over their feet, rising above their ankles and washing up behind them. Hiiragi pays them no mind. Nothing in the world matters but that gaze, but the white-hot iron burning through his skin, but the brush of a well-worn uniform shirt against his.

_Do you wanna run away with me?_

Simple words. They hardly have any deeper meaning, borderline shallow in their crudeness. It is as much an out as it is a challenge, as it is a suggestive whisper of _more_. He could get away with grabbing Uenoyama by the hand, snatching up their things and running. Pink, chapped lips, dry with salt and wind and eyes shadowed by whooping hair, tell him he could get away with much more than that. Maybe, he could get away with pushing him against a wall and kissing salt down his throat, drinking in all his secrets and inhaling this pride of his, this endless fire. He could keep his own from going out solely through feeding from Uenoyama's own raging inferno and he'd let him, Hiiragi's sure—Uenoyama would let him take and take and take until nothing was left but bruises and bare bones and dust. He's tempted. Destroying him would be so easy. Unearthing the fire hidden between his ribcage, halfway cracked open already, would be so beautiful. Going out in a blaze of glory would be so warm, scalding. Hiiragi can feel the phantoms of third degree burns.

It's midnight, and the world is ink and Uenoyama Ritsuka is a yokai, a chiaroscuro, blending into the painting in the darkest corner of the artist's heart. The sea is waiting, beckoning, murdering. It kills him a little more every second he runs from it, poisons him a little further every time he inhales the salt without touching the wound. He's staring ruin in the face, staring ferocity in the face, staring melancholy and hope in the face, and he surges forward and throws his cares to the wind, his dreams to the sky, his hopes to the sand and his arms around Uenoyama's shoulders, spinning unsteadily on his heel and whispering ruin fiercely in his ear as he falls.

_Stay._

He takes Uenoyama down with him.

The arms around his waist burn red hot marks through his shirt as the shock of ice cold water stops his heart. The gasps escape like a bird from a cage, wonder and doom all in one, water entering the gates and burning his throat on the way down. It's salt and poison all in one, blood and sand on his tongue, and hands cupped around his jaw, holding his face roughly, pull him up. The water drops from his hair as he coughs, spewing more everywhere, and he must not make a pretty sight, but he grabs onto Uenoyama's wrists like lifelines and stands on the guitarist's feet, panting hotly against his face and feeling the heat that tells him the other is doing the same.

He can hear nothing through the melancholy that drips from the water slipping down their fingers and shirts, pouring from their hair and pants, reducing them to shivers and coughs. Uenoyama's hair is plastered to his face, covering his eyes and making his open, fascinated expression look almost child-like in its wonder. He shakes Hiiragi slightly, grips tighter, fingers digging into the space behind his ears, and his jaw, and his cheek, and brushing into the cold, wet, hard mess of his hair. Hiiragi reaches out with trembling fingers, coughs water between them, and digs his nails into Uenoyama's wrists as his other hand pushes hair from his face, all the way back. His whole face, forehead and all, is left in evidence, safe for a few stray hairs rebellious enough to remain plastered to his face.

Cheeks grow hot even in the fatal cold, eyes growing wide at the gesture, and Hiiragi lets the hand in Uenoyama's hair trail back until it cups the wet skin of his nape, _squeezing._ The gasp that gets him is exquisite, clearing the roaring of his ears.

_Oh._

The ocean is rumbling. The waves are crashing on shore, and around their knees, shaking them in place. It's a pleasant sound, even though it's the most terrifying thing Hiiragi's ever heard. He lurches forward, careless and weightless, and his forehead slams against Uenoyama's. It hurts, hurts more than it should, and he whimpers at it but he's smiling, wide and with every tooth he has, pupils tracking the way blue eyes widen, dark lashes flutter, water drips down from thin eyebrows, crimson decorates sharp cheekbones. He's gorgeous, this yokai he's got at his disposal, and he doesn't hesitate to let a hand drift up, sinking into wet hair, tantalizingly soft. He grips, curious, and he doesn't pull.

There's anticipation in dazed, hooded blue eyes that are charged with ecstasy, muscles that tremble with exhilaration. Hiiragi laughs against Uenoyama's cheek, maybe kisses it. It's breathless and low, a chuckle that grows into full blown cackles, and Uenoyama joins in with the same kind of disbelief, the same kind of insanity. This is insanity. It feels good.

It's cold.

Uenoyama wraps an arm around his shoulder, and Hiiragi lets go of a wrist in favor of squeezing Uenoyama's waist, listening to the hitch of his breath, the low timbre of his laughter. He could get away with more. He could get away with drinking his laughter, biting at his pulse, kissing and marking every inch of the pale throat taunting him behind a wet, white collar. This situation leaves little to the imagination, and Hiiragi wants, more than he can stand. He could get away with a hand much lower and another much rougher, one kneading and one pulling. And he could get away with teeth on his mouth, too, and even with a cold mouth on his fingers.

He could get away with getting rid of the shirt and everything else, with baring him open and taking everything he had to offer and everything he's trying to save from the trainwreck of heartbreak.

He could get away with ruin and he _wants._

Hiiragi leans back with an arm snug around a waist and an arm around a neck, fingers brushing the hem of a wet shirt and black locks. He laughs himself mad. He watches Uenoyama laugh himself silly, and then startles when he's picked up and promptly thrown into the water. The moment of terror when he goes under, darkness enveloping what little vision he had and cold stealing away everything but fear, is invigorating.

He comes up splashing and spitting water, declaring war and playing dirty, and they laugh as much as they insult each other as they wage a war of water and fear and want.

The phone says it's 2 AM when they come out, and Hiiragi sits on the sand as Uenoyama wrings his shirt out. He unbuttons his shirt, lets it dry on its own, leans back on his hands and listens to Uenoyama humming a tune that follows the tempo of the crashing waves. He's got a nice voice. Hiiragi looks at the ocean. It looks imposing. Unstoppable. Terrifying.

It looks lonely.

He's cold.

He straddles Uenoyama's lap easily, wraps his arms around his neck even easier. It's so easy to drop his head on his chest; he can feel his heartbeat on the top of his head, spiking and going three times faster than it should, and he can feel the vibrations of his ragged breathing. His hands are hesitant but boiling hot when they settle on his hips, beneath cold, wet fabric and over drying skin. The contact is like touching a live wire and the sound they make is something of a plea, something of a warning.

Uenoyama smells like salt. Hiiragi wants to taste him so bad he shakes with it, _aches_ with it. He's a fool and a dick, at that, but he can't help it. He breathes heavily, feels the hands dig in, fingers trying to leave bruises and crescent indents innocently. The guitarist's heartbeat accelerates and Hiiragi lifts his head, nose dragging up a pale collarbone. A gasp. A shaky breath. A squeeze to bruising hips.

A pale throat is bared and Hiiragi never claimed to be a good man, so he lays claim as thoroughly as he desired, until the taste of salt has mingled with rust on his tongue. He licks at skin, kisses bruises and sucks at nips afterwards, admiring his masterpiece.

Maybe he is a bit of an artist after all.

They sprawl on the sand until they dry, half tangled even though they do nothing but breathe and hum, but listen to the crashing of the waves and stare at each other. Uenoyama traces every knob of his spine, every one of his ribs, and mouths the name of each bone, frowning when he realizes he got one wrong. Hiiragi, meanwhile, makes more art pieces, using collarbones he traces with his tongue and a chest he listens to with the utmost precision. It's easy as breathing, this, and maybe it's because everyone is being too kind and Uenoyama is being so cruel with that golden heart of his, or maybe it's because the ocean is terrifying but drowning is exciting.

But he tastes rust, and salt, and sweat and sand, and he hasn't kissed Uenoyama and he ought to, but he doesn't and Uenoyama doesn't do anything but touch, memorize, mentally arrange like a scientist.

They leave at 3:30 AM, and they don't hold hands. They share headphones in the train. They walk home together. They separate at the intersection.

Uenoyama grabs the back of his shirt before he leaves and damn, he's cruel after all. Hiiragi turns and plants his mouth right over the marks the uniform can't hide, sucking and prodding, and then he smirks into his shoulder and bites lightly, a warning of what's to come. Or maybe a wish. Uenoyama squeezes his hips, where bruises and five marks lay on each hip. Hiiragi will prod at those, because the pain feels like drowning and that doesn't feel like fear.

They don't kiss.

If they do, the yokai might vanish.

The next day, they get along for 10 minutes before they start arguing. Marks have been covered and memories have been hidden, because prying eyes mustn't know. It's easier this way.

Hiiragi is snarling something about Uenoyama being a nightmare when the guitarist rolls his eyes and says, "Yeah, ditto. What do you wanna do today?"

Hiiragi's heart stops. He stops breathing. Neon blue lights. Beacons. Danger.

He keeps walking. "I wanna go to an amusement park."

Uenoyama sighs, hands stuffed in his pockets. "You're such a fucking pain. Let's go, then."

Hiiragi smiles to himself.

Everyone is being too kind, and he's no longer terrified of drowning even if he is scared of the sea, and Uenoyama Ritsuka hasn't changed one bit.

_I'm cold._

**Author's Note:**

> Drop a comment or a kudos!! Pester me with your thoughts or your questions, I love hearing your thoughts and every comment means the world to me <3


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